guage with which they were perfectly familiar, must have known, most assuredly, the value and import of the phrase 'unquenchable fire;' and it is as clear as demonstration can make it that they did not understand it to mean endless. And shall any, at this late day, pretend to understand Greek better than the Greeks themselves? bius has happily given us an illustration of the Scripture usage of the phrase. He employs it not in reference to time or duration, but to set forth the severity of the punishment or suffering. And this is the manner in which it is used in the Scriptures, as is shown in a preceding paragraph; and the manner in which the Saviour used it in Mark ix. as a figure of the severity of the judgments which were to fall upon the enemies and the unfaithful professors of the gospel, without any more reference, probably, to duration than Eusebius had when he spoke of the unquenchable fire in which the martyrs were burned.

The following facts are established: 1. The usage of words and phrases determines their meaning, and the obscure is to be interpreted by the plain. 2. The whole Scripture usage of the phrase in question is against the meaning of endless, as will be seen by consulting the passages which we have quoted and referred to, which are all the examples, except Mark ix. which is in review. 3. The Greek authors quoted above, did not use it to signify endless, which gives us both sacred and profane, scriptural and classical, usage against it. 4. There is not one particle of reason or proof to show that Christ used it in the sense of endless, more than the prophets or these Greek writers. 5. If therefore, anything can be proved, it is proved that Christ used it, not in an endless, but in a limited sense, as did those who wrote and spoke near to the same time, not as a figure of punishment after death, but, as did the prophets before him, as a figure of punishment to be inflicted on the earth, of the temporal judgments of God.

It may be well to say, in closing this dissertation, that the following critics, believers in endless misery, allow that the phrase 'unquenchable fire,' or 'fire that shall not be quenched,' is applied to punishment inflicted in this world: A. Clarke, on Ezek. xx. 47: The ravages of

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the Chaldeans shall not be stopped till the whole land is ruined; and on Matt. iii. 12,-He will burn up the chaff, the disobedient and rebellious Jews; unquenchable fire, that cannot be extinguished by man.' Hammond, on Matt. iii. 12, Unquenchable fire, a fire never quenched till it hath done its work. The parable was fulfilled on the Jews even in this life.' Le Clerc, on Matt. iii. 12, 'Unquenchable fire, i. e. evidently until it had consumed the whole chaff. By these words is signified the utter destruction of the Jews.' Bishop Pearce says, 'In this whole verse the destruction of the Jewish state is expressed in the terms of husbandmen.' Such are the admissions of these learned critics, which happily serve to strengthen and confirm the views given above.11

T. B. T.

ART. XXVI.

The Evil of Human Creeds, and its Remedy.

THAT much evil has been occasioned, in the religious community, by the numerous and conflicting creeds which have been invented and adopted as indispensable to the Christian faith and life, no well-informed person will deny. The innumerable evils flowing from this cause áre even now truly lamentable. And if we look back into the history of the church, and attempt to compute the troubles which these opposing creeds have produced, it requires a strong confidence in the infinite wisdom and goodness of the divine Ruler to sustain us in the belief that all has been ordered right. In view of these perplexities, the mind is naturally led to inquire for the cause or causes which have led to this multiplication of dis

11 Consult Expositor for September, 1838, art. xxix.; Paige's Selections on Matt. iii. 12; Balfour's First Inquiry, pp. 160-176, 2d. ed.; Trumpet, ix. 169; Whittemore's Notes, pp. 44-46, 64-66; Stuart's Exeg. Essays, pp. 140, 141; Hell Torments Overthrown, c. i. sect. ii. iii. v. vi.; Winchester's Dialogues, pp. 98-111.

cordant creeds. Although we may, with safety, believe that divine wisdom saw fit that these conflicting modes of faith should for a season exist, and that divine goodness will finally so overrule them and all their consequences, as to promote the great scheme of human improvement, and of man's advancement in the knowledge of gospel truth, we have no reason for believing that it is consistent with the same wisdom and goodness that they should forever be continued. There are, no doubt, innumerable instances in which evils have been overruled for general good; but not one, which furnishes proof that it is necessary that evil should exist forever. We may therefore hope for the divine approbation, in attempting to ascertain the causes, and to devise the cure, of the evils how mentioned.

In the first place, we may safely say, that the natural or constitutional imperfection of man lies at the foundation of all the doctrinal errors which have ever been incorporated into the different creeds of the church, and is the fountain from which all these corrupt streams have proceeded. The known fact that sincere and honest men are constantly liable, in their reasoning, to come to widely different conclusions, is sufficient proof of human imperfection, and shows, very clearly, that without an acknowledged standard, or rule, and that strictly adhered to, different councils and different individuals must be liable to frame conflicting creeds. Why learned men,

who cannot have been ignorant of man's constitutional imperfection, should ever have entertained such a confidence in themselves as to believe it safe to set up a standard of their own, by which to justify themselves on the one hand, and on the other to condemn every body who could not subscribe to it, seems, at the first thought, a matter of wonder; but a second thought resolves the difficulty, by attributing it to the same imperfection which lies at the foundation of all human error.

Secondly, we have reason to believe that in the early or primitive times of the Christian church, when converts came in from different nations, they would naturally retain many of their former errors in theology; and, although they became convinced of the essential facts on

which the Christian religion was founded, this did not free their minds from all the errors which they inherited from their forefathers. That this was verily the case, abundant proof appears in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, and in many of the Epistles which they wrote. To this circumstance it is proper to add, that the books which compose our Bible had not, in those days, been collected into one volume, as they now are; so that the people could not make such a use of the Scriptures as we can, who have the advantage of tracing their harmony, and of making ourselves acquainted with their general theme.

In relation to traditional errors, which converts to Christianity, from different nations, still retained, the following from Mosheim deserves notice: "It will be easily imagined that unity and peace could not reign long in the church, since it was composed of Jews and Gentiles, who regarded each other with the bitterest aversion. Besides, as the converts to Christianity could not extirpate radically the prejudices which had been formed in their minds by education, and confirmed by time, they brought with them into the bosom of the church more or less of the errors of their former religions. Thus, the seeds of discord and controversy were early sown, and could not fail to spring up soon into animosities and dissensions, which accordingly broke out and divided the church." The divisions, thus produced in the first century of the Christian church, seemed only to prepare the way for the introduction of others, in after times, which were founded on the philosophy of the schools, and supported by the subtleties of learned presbyters; and history does not leave us at all ignorant of the pride of opinion, which prompted different sects to support and defend their respective dogmas, nor of the bitterness which characterized their opposition to each other. Thus has the work gone on; councils succeeding councils, by whose decrees orthodoxy and heresy have been determined by the majorities of votes which prevailed in such assemblies. To give anything like a just account of all the different and conflicting creeds which have distracted the church, or to describe the deadly animosities which they have pro

duced, would require much labor and furnish many volumes. But the design of this brief article is mainly to suggest a proper method by which Christians may remove the evils that have so much dishonored the religion of Jesus, and restore it to its original simplicity.

If we could be satisfied with regard to a precaution, the observance of which would have proved a successful safeguard against the formation of conflicting creeds, we should doubtless thereby make ourselves acquainted with the proper method to be adopted for the cure of this grievous evil. This is believed to be no difficult task, provided all Christians could understand its propriety, and be persuaded so far to relinquish their sectarian pride and partiality, as to adopt it. Had the veneration for the holy Scriptures, which the early Christians professed to entertain, led them to frame no other creed than such as would have been expressed in the words. which the inspired writers had made use of, it does not appear that any disagreement could have been introduced. But this was far from being the case. Either this precaution was never thought of, or the pride of learning was such as to prevent the adoption of it. As early as the second century, the venerable simplicity which is so apparent in the doctrine and precepts taught by Christ and his apostles, and in the manner employed by them in giving instruction, was widely departed from; and under the direction of human wisdom and human policy, such as were vain of their learning employed their ingenuity for the purpose of rendering Christianity acceptable to the philosophers of their times. The following passage from Mosheim belongs to this subject: "This venerable simplicity was not, indeed, of a long duration; its beauty was gradually effaced by the laborious efforts of human learning, and the dark subtleties of imaginary science. Acute researches were employed, upon several religious subjects, concerning which ingenious decisions were pronounced; and, what was worst of all, several tenets of a chimerical philosophy were imprudently incorporated into the Christian system. This disadvantageous change, this unhappy alteration of the primitive simplicity of the Christian religion, was chiefly owing to two reasons; the one